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Is The Dreamcast Undead?

Posted by simoniker on from the typing-of-the-undead dept.

PlaidG writes "An interesting article has been posted on Antigames.com about the community revolving around the yet-living Sega Dreamcast. It covers the reasons behind the continuing viability of the Dreamcast, and the thriving underground surrounding it." Quite apart from the cool stuff such as MP3 players or Dreamcast Linux you can hack around with, the array of great games now available so cheaply makes Sega's console very enticing, even past its prime.

14 of 61 comments (clear)

  1. Nice to know but... by AnamanFan · · Score: 2, Funny

    But try to find a cheep NIC card for the fancy stuff! The Dreamcast may be $50, but the NIC card is ~$150 on E-bay!

    --
    AnamanFan - Trying to find the Truth, one post at a time.
    1. Re:Nice to know but... by gl4ss · · Score: 2, Informative

      yes, it's cheaper to get a modem to your pc and hook the dc up with it's modem.

      that said, dreamcast is unbeliviable price/entertainment value, 'normal' people have lost their intrest in it. there's at leas as many GOOD games for it as there is for xbox.. ;) and the community is great. i espacially like the mp3 player that uses the vmu display for control so theres no need for a monitor/tv to play mp3's as you wish.

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
  2. Re:Biggest Mistake by Lazyhound · · Score: 3, Insightful


    Um... How exactly would having the broadband adaptor enable piracy? Last time I checked, Dreamcasts didn't include hard drives and CD burners...

  3. The price is right! by thelenm · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I recently got a used Dreamcast for less than $50 at Electronics Boutique, and the games sell for less than $10 or so. As far as I can tell, the hardware is just about as good as any other console, and at that price, it's hard to say it's not worth it.

    --
    Use Ctrl-C instead of ESC in Vim!
  4. well, undead is a pretty gray area by peteshaw · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I mean, the Atari 2600 is technically undead because people still make new games for it, trade games, and even make goofy hardwood handheld versions of it.

    This is all uber-cool and very stimulating to my inner nerd self, but lets be real-- its not exactly giving the Xbox a run for the money.

    On the other hand, the dreamcast is a very nice little custom game platform. I am surprised no one has figured out commercial applications for a 50 dollar Windows CE based platform that has zippy graphics, a cd-rom drive, and a modem. Hey, add a crad reader and a tv and you could make it into an ATM!

    Oh well. I bought the Dreamcast for one reason, and one reason only. A reason that refuses to die even this very day. And that reason is....

    S E A M A N !

    (start Leonard Nimoy's voice)

    Welcome back. It is good to see you so.....
    (unnatural pause) ...soon

    --
    www.avacal.com -- the home page of pete shaw
    1. Re:well, undead is a pretty gray area by Kris_J · · Score: 4, Funny
      This is all uber-cool and very stimulating to my inner nerd self, but lets be real-- its not exactly giving the Xbox a run for the money.
      Except in Japan. Of the three Xboxes sold over there I hear that two are boardroom tables and the third is an obsticle in Takeshi's Castle.
  5. Better value than PS2, Cube... by wizbit · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I am a student, and wanted to get this thing based solely on the fact that I'd be able to get it cheap and buy second-hand games for next to nothing. I see my buddies with Playstations and Gamecubes and I like most of the games they play, but my roommate and I have gotten literally HUNDREDS of hours out of my $14 NHL 2K2 - and I know my friend put Zelda Wind Waker down inside of three days (as soon as he beat it).

    The games are easy to back up (which, yes, makes them easy to pirate, too) so I don't have to worry about $60 going to waste on a PS2 DVD because of an errant fall or a little carelessness in loading the disc. The one concern I have with the DC is the laser motor - sites like DCEmu seem to indicate this is a legitimate fear, as there are tools available on their site making backups a little easier on the DC's laser.

    I got my DC with a dozen games, two controllers and a memory pack for under $50. I bought more games but I still play the nucleus of old games and get at least a couple hours' use out of them every night. Needless to say, I am very happy with this purchase. :)

    1. Re:Better value than PS2, Cube... by klui · · Score: 2, Informative

      Not entirely true. DC games are not easy to "backup." Your originals will not be copyable through conventional means and even if you do copy the files in a game, they'll need to be cracked and probably modified to run under a standard ISO9660 FS. They're easy to "backup" because of a small group of people who cracked the games. Their efforts were possible because of a loophole in Sega's MIL-CD format allowed a game's contents--burned onto CD-R--to be recognized by the console. Copying these "backups" is easy; copying real originals is hard.

    2. Re:Better value than PS2, Cube... by wizbit · · Score: 2, Informative

      i have copied vanishing point, TER, and test drive le mans using DiscJuggler. should add that even on my relatively old DVD/CD-RW drive, it reads the data track as well as the session info without issue.

      check out DCEmu, I promise, there's a lot of documentation on doing this.

  6. Interweb Terminal by ahoehn · · Score: 4, Informative

    Among the other mentioned uses, the dreamcast will work wonderfully as an interweb device. If you can find the keyboard and mouse attachments, or use one of the adaptors that Mad Catz sold for ps2 keyboards, it's very simple to set up the included web browsing software and have at it. All dreamcasts came with a built in modem, and if you can find one, the broadband adaptors work well also. If you don't want to shell out the money for the expensive and rare broadband adaptor, you can still connect your dreamcast to the internet through your PC's broadband connection using the guide here for windows and here for linux.

    --
    Mod my comments down. It'll be fun.
  7. Maybe not dead.. by Boglin · · Score: 2, Funny
    but it's dying. At least mine is, anyway. Something has weakened the motor so that it cannot provide the necessary torque to bring the disc up to speed.

    Solution: After I turn the machine on, I open the lid and rapidly spin the disc with my finger, then slam the lid shut (like the propellers on old WWI planes). While the motor can't accelerate , it is apparently powerful enough to keep it going at a constant angular velocity. Besides, my friends get a kick out of watching me do it.

  8. I Love my DC! by RevAaron · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Last year sometime, our NES burnt out. We tried to replace the capacitor that blew, but it wasn't the exact one we needed and the NES will only run for a few minutes then die between reboots. So... I forget about it.

    A few months ago, I was really jonsin for some NES. I tried using an emulator on my iBook and my PDA, but it just wasn't what I wanted. I was thinking about making an NES controller adapter for my iBook or PC and then outputting to the screen, but that was a huge PIA.

    The other option was buying a new NES. After looking around some, I accidentally came across information about emulation on the Dreamcast. Did a little math, and found that it would likely be cheaper to get a DC than it would to get an NES that worked with some additional games!

    So, I bought a DC for $30 from Half.com. I've seen them at my local Funcoland for $35 as well. Man, $30! For that $30, I have a machine that can not only play the NES games I have, but pretty much every damned NES game that has ever existed. Plus, SNES, Genesis, Sega Master System, and others! And, I don't have to deal with a super-crashy NES and all the associated mouth-wind-rituals involved.

    I am not sure if it is needed, but I made sure to get a DC manufactured before Dec 2000 (or whatever the cut-off is), so that I could easily burn CDs of ROMs and emulators as well as my own and other folks' homebrew software.

    I don't own one DC game though... I've been meaning to find out a couple decent ones and buy them cheap. But we've got the GameCube for that, so I've not really been motivated to look too hard.

    Can anyone reccomend any really good games that can be had for the DC that I couldn't get for the GameCube? I'd love to hear some reccomendations!

    --

    Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
    1. Re:I Love my DC! by neostorm · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Dreamcast had so many great games it's unbelievable:

      - Shen Mue 1 (unbelievable adventure/fighting game)
      - Shen Mue 2 (sequel to previously mentioned unbelievable adventure/fighting game)
      - Rayman 2 (available on other systems)
      - Bangai-O (incredibly fun Shooter)
      - Skies of Arcadia (I know you said something you *can't* get on GC, but I had to list it off anyway)
      - Grandia 2 (too good not to list, despite it being available on PS2)
      - Soul Calibur (nearly the best 3D fighter ever made for console)
      - Virtua Tennis 1 & 2 (I loath sports games. I played the hell out of these until my hands bled. Very fun 4 player)
      - Powerstone 1 & 2 (pretty fun multiplayer titles. I can only really recommend if you have 3-4 players involved)
      - Crazy Taxi 1 & 2 (semi-entertaining driving games)
      - Sword of the Berserk (relatively decent hack and slash for fans of the manga by the same name. You'll like it more if you're already familiar with the series)
      - Chu Chu Rocket (very fun four player puzzle game)
      - NFL2k1 & 2k2 (very fun, addictive and well designed football games. I hate sports games but I played these as much as the tennis games)

      I have bizarre taste in games, but that's everything I really enjoy on that system. There's a few others to check out if you're really bored, but I can't guarantee you will see the beauty in these titles the way I do:

      - Zombie Revenge (insanely cheesy Zombie killing action. horrid controls, horrid plot, budget game all the way, but it's so very fun to play)
      - Samba De Amigo (very quirky and really addictive music title. I recommend tracking down the maraca controllers)
      - Seaman (not incredibly good, but too quirky and unique not to list)
      - Space Channel 5 (same as above, not too incredible, but really strange and fun)
      - Vanishing Point (Interesting racing game. Not the best, but killer stunt driving tests that will make your head hurt)
      - Wild Metal (this game is horrid. For some reason it addicted my best friend and I in the multiplayer, so we played it for more hours than your average RPG. Interesting use of basic physics in gameplay, good variety of weapons, and it was pretty fun. Very reminiscent of Scorched Earth. Really bad game though, you've been warned)

      Hope I didn't leave anything out. With that said, I hope you at least pick up the Shen Mue games. Those two games alone have honestly been the the most amazing experiences I've had in a game since I was a wee lad. Nothing else like them.

  9. Undead, but not alive by fm6 · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Let's not make such a big deal every time hackers find new uses for remaindered hardware. It doesn't mean that the Dreamcast (or the Newton, or the Atari 800) is risen from the dead. It means exactly the opposite -- all the sales channels are liquidating at fire sale prices, and the hackers are benefiting. But now, because when they're gone, they're GONE !!!!

    A long time ago, I worked for Convergent Technologies, which partnered with post-breakup AT&T to produce the first commercial hardware to be sold under the AT&T label. (Before the breakup, AT&T was a utility, and thus not allowed to sell hardware commercially.) This was (dig the irony) "Project Safari". The biggest result of this collaboration was the Unix PC.

    Now, AT&T spent about $1 billion on this project. Paid most of it to Convergent to fill their supply chain with these boxes. Which they never even tried to sell, because upper management decided to concentrate on IBM compatibles. Almost all got remaindered away to various hackers who jumped at the chance to buy a serious Unix workstation for less then it cost to manufacture the thing. Hundreds of people got their introduction to Unix this way. Not a bad thing, but not a ressurection either.